She and I, girl and boy,
Merrily arm in arm,
The lark above us,
And God to love us,
And keep our hearts from harm.

Sing ho!
So we go,
Over Downs that are surging green,
Under the sky and the seas that lie
Silvery-strewn between_.

One brilliant morning in early June, some two months
after she had brought the gypsy’s mare back
to Putnam’s on the evening of the Polefax Meeting,
Boy rose early and stood humming the lines as she dressed,
to a simple little tune she had composed for them.

The words were in harmony with her mood and with the
morning. In part they inspired, in part they
determined her. As she began the song Boy was
wondering whether she should begin to bathe. Her
mind had resolved itself without effort as she ended.

There had been a week of summer; the tide would be
high, and only a day or two back a coastguard at the
Gap had told her that the water was warming fast.

She went to the window and looked out over the vast
green sweep of the Paddock Close running away up the
gorse-crowned hillside that rose like a rampart at
the back.

It was early. The sun had risen, but the mist
lay white as yet in the hollows and hung about the
dripping trees. Earth and sky and sea called
her.

The girl slipped into her riding-boots, put her jersey
on, and over it her worn long-skirted coat, twisted
her bathing gown and cap inside her towel, and walked
across the loft, the old boards shaking beneath her
swift feet.

At the top of the ladder she paused a moment and looked
down.

The fan-tails strutted in the yard; Maudie licked
herself on the ladder just out of the reach of Billy
Bluff, who, tossing on his chain, greeted the girl
with a volley of yelps, yaps, howls of triumph, petition,
expectation and joy.

Maudie, less pleased, rose coldly, and descended the
ladder. She knew by experience what to expect
when that slight figure came tripping down the ladder.